Fading dreams

She found me last night, at that joyous and bittersweet place somewhere between consciousness and slumber, for the first time in many moons.

It wasn't what I wanted -- with her, it never quite is -- but somehow it's enough. I could feel it floating from my heart to hers, rippling across the ocean of feelings that is often so difficult to navigate, stronger than I'd ever admit it to being in the harsh light of day.

She was there, but she wasn't, and for the first time I realized just how much of my heart she really owns.

She's my literal and figurative dream, the little slice of something I hold when the world goes to hell. I'll never really hold her, though, not in the way I long to do, in the mornings just as the light creeps across the sky.

And yet that, too, is OK. It's what she seemed to be telling me in my dreams, that even if this is all it can be, somehow it's enough.

I thought about her a long time this morning, this mystical woman that haunts my dreams, and remembered a line or two from one of my favorite singer's saddest songs:

Why'd you steal my heart away? Why'd you make me dream each day?

They'll fade in time...these dreams of mine.